Alabama’s Abortion Bill and What It Means to Be Pro-Life

Last updated on: May 21, 2019 at 11:33 am by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Alabama’s Abortion Bill and What It Means to Be Pro-Life 2019-05-21T11:33:39-05:00 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

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I’m a pro life priest. We have a strong and active pro life ministry in our parish. Every year we take a bus and March for Life. We pray at the abortion clinic. We support Birthright–our local support group for women in crisis pregnancies. We encourage and support families who foster and adopt.

I’m happy about the Alabama vote, and the pray the legislation going through in my own state of South Carolina, in Georgia, Ohio and elsewhere will lead to the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

I hope Planned Parenthood is de-funded as soon as possible, and I’m not ashamed of it anymore than I would have been ashamed of supporting the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

But there are twelve other things I am also in favor of:

Supporting mothers who choose life. Government funding to help single moms is one thing, but I’m in favor of this funding coming from local tax revenue so the care and support can be locally based.
Local community care for moms who choose life. There are already lots of clinics who offer that help, but local churches also need to be there to welcome and support with friendship and finances the moms who choose life.
Promoting adoption and fostering. Some moms who choose life will also choose, for their own reasons, to give the child up for adoption. The government representatives who pass legislation to ban abortion should follow it up pretty darn quickly with legislation offering government programs which make adoption safe and free to the best families for each child.
Not only should legislators make adoption free they should offer generous tax credits and benefits to families who adopt.
Local charities and churches should welcome adoptive families and grant them every benefit because they have also chosen life.
Pro life sex education needs to be introduced. This is not a negative “sex is dirty” campaign, but a campaign that re-asserts the link between sexual relations and making babies. Young people need to know that sex means babies and need to know what to do when pregnant–who to call and how to choose life.
Sex education for boys needs to re-assert their responsibility in sexual matters. If sex means babies for girls it also means babies for boys. This education should include a guide on all the responsibilities of father hood.
While we’re being pro life, I’m also in favor of life long support for families with a larger number of children. More than four kids? You should get big tax breaks, rebates from the government for that family van you need to buy and subsidized health and dentistry care for all your kids. What if all the money used to fund Planned Parenthood were to go towards True Parenthood?
Programs to help single women who have chosen life for their kids and choose to keep their child to get training and child care and get back to work. These should be funded locally and supported by local churches and charities.
Turning off programs and articles in the media that are pro abortion and turning on programs and information outlets that promote life and further the joy of human life.
Marriage education, not just sex education. In high school and college we should have courses that help form and inform young men about how to become good husbands and form and inform young women on the vocation of being wives and mothers.
Developing the church to fill in for the extended family. Extended families used to support the nuclear family. Now that is all broken for many different reasons. The local church communities could function as the caring and giving groups that used to be the extended family.

Ban abortion? Sure.

But let’s also put our money where our mouth and practice what we preach and do all this other stuff too!

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